


late night walks and talks

by isleofapplepies



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Babysitting, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 15:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/954850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isleofapplepies/pseuds/isleofapplepies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of babysitting, sexual frustration, friendship, and sleeping in uncomfortable positions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	late night walks and talks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



„Arthur?“

Darkness breathed against Merlin’s eyes as he sat up and blinked at the empty living room. Silence stretched from wall to wall, wrapped around Merlin’s head like a fuzzy blanket. Raising one heavy hand to wipe at the thin trail of drool that ran down from corner of his mouth, Merlin dropped his legs over the edge of the sofa and yawned.

Huh.

This was definitely a first, he mused as he glanced down at his legs. As his eyes adjusted to the faint glim of streetlights dripping from the half-drawn shades onto his skin, Merlin ran his fingers through his hair. Something felt off.

Of course, that was an underestimation of the month. Merlin wasn’t exactly used to waking up stark naked on their living room sofa in the middle of the night with only Arthur’s expensive business shirt lending Merlin’s crotch a sliver of decency, and with no Arthur sprawled atop of him.

With one arm wrapped tightly around his middle Merlin reached down to the floor to retrieve his pants from underneath a stack of film magazines. Putting his underwear back on Merlin kept his eyes trained on the magazine carpeted floor, starting to piece the night together. Arthur had been the one to accidentally sweep them off the coffee table earlier when he’d pushed Merlin down onto it, his hands gripping Merlin’s shoulders firmly, and then sliding down his chest like a waterfall when Arthur dropped to his knees. His lips had mouthed tender profanities against Merlin’s skin. His fingers had dipped below the waistband of Merlin’s trousers.

The memory of Arthur kneeling between Merlin’s thighs sent shivers down his spine. Shivers clinging to his back like drops of icy water. Where was Arthur?

The digital clock on the DVD player displayed 2:35 AM. The open door to their bedroom displayed only more dark and empty space. Feeling oddly vulnerable wearing nothing but his underpants Merlin slipped into Arthur’s shirt and, still unable to shake his feeling of disorientation, ventured out of the room in search of his boyfriend.

The lights were on in the kitchen. Merlin glowered at them as he ran his hand up and down the back of his head, lost in the sensation of ruffling his hair. The kitchen presented itself to him in all its carnage-like glory with the lights boring into his eyes with sick joy. Or maybe he was just imagining that. He should really put more effort into rational thinking and less into personification of electricity.

Electricity. Merlin laughed a little breathlessly. Arthur was going to go haywire when he found out the lights were on for hours without anyone using the room. Or when he saw the peas and carrots on the floor and, oh would you look at that, on the walls too. How did that get—Oh.

Merlin rubbed his eyes as logical thinking begrudgingly kicked in and brought him onto a higher level of wakefulness. He knew where to find Arthur.

Having turned the light off Merlin crossed the hall to a room that had started out as a study but through the years turned into a haphazard crossbreed of a storage unit and a guest bedroom. The room was currently occupied by their youngest guest yet; Gwen and Lance’s six months old daughter.

If it weren’t for their near angelic nature Merlin would have been sure that entrusting Merlin and Arthur with their only child while themselves enjoying a week in Paris had been a cunning ruse on part of Gwen and Lance. Merlin and Arthur had spent the last three days discussing at length whether their friends were aware that darling Delyth had started teething. And if so, would her continuous ear-splitting cry be enough to bring out some deeply suppressed streak of cruelty in either Lance or Gwen? Arthur had been very nearly outraged when Merlin first suggested the possibility. Now, though, even Arthur’s unswerving faith in the goodness of his friends was starting to falter.

Merlin shuddered to think what his and Arthur’s chances at surviving the next four days were. Or on getting his cock sucked, with The Voice That Never Sleeps screaming at the top of her lungs every time they’d put her down to bed. Nope, clearly they were going to remember this week as the week of blowjobs never performed. Merlin hoped that whatever Lance and Gwen were going to bring them from Paris would be worth it.

Come to think of it, Merlin realized bitterly, if this is what they’d had to live with for the last six months it would be a miracle if they left their hotel room bed for anything other than basic human needs. And shower sex. Though Arthur would argue that was covered under basic human needs and therefore did not need to be listed separately. Merlin could not agree. Not that he did not see Arthur’s point. Ever since the Great ER and IKEA Trip of 2011 Merlin was just a tad hesitant to call cut foreheads, fractures, and shower doors torn off of the hinges a basic human need. That was all.

Lance and Gwen wouldn’t get it on in a shower without an anti-slip mat. They had their lives together. Or so it had seemed. If they really were that perfect would they leave Merlin and Arthur in charge of a baby? Morgana could hardly let them dogsit her Czechoslovakian Wolfdog. (“No, not again, Merlin. Not after what you fed her the last time.” “Morgana, that was an acci—” “Aithusa’s digestion is not up for discussion, Merlin. If you had taken care of her in the first place she would still be your dog.”)

Merlin opened the door slowly and slipped in. Just as he had thought; he found Arthur asleep in a chair next to the baby’s cot, one arm swung lifelessly over its side. Delyth’s little fingers gripped Arthur’s hand tightly.

Careful not to startle him and by extension the baby, Merlin put a gentle hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Arthur, wake up.”

Arthur did not open his eyes. Instead he made an unhappy shushing noise, which Merlin guessed was kept down to a single fricative only due to Arthur’s inability to form full words and tell Merlin to shut his mouth. “Arthur,” he insisted with a slight shake of Arthur’s shoulder. In the rumbling murmur weighting on Arthur’s lips Merlin could more feel than hear his own name. With a sigh he lowered himself to the floor and leaned his back against Arthur’s stretched-out legs. “You can’t sleep here,” he said without conviction as his determination to drag Arthur out of the room dissipated into the warmth of Arthur’s body.

“Why?” Arthur managed a full word at last, hoarse and grumpy.

Merlin rolled his head back and to a side, resting his cheek on Arthur’s knee. “For a number of reasons,” he muttered. “To name one, you were supposed to be attending to my blue balls. And here we are, hours later, and I’m just as sexually frustrated as I was before your best friends’ baby turned out to be a cockblocking mastermind.”

It took a while before Arthur responded; Merlin had started to think he fell asleep again. “They’re your best friends,” Arthur said. His fingers took a gentle dive into Merlin’s hair. “And I doubt they’d appreciate you complaining about your Smurf balls in front of their infant daughter.”

Merlin sighed loudly and closed his eyes, giving in to the soothing sensation of Arthur’s fingers threading loosely through his hair. “They’re not Smurf blue,” he protested weakly. Why he pursued this line of conversation he could not tell. All he knew for certain was that Arthur’s body was firm and unyielding against his back, and the light strokes of his hand chased away Merlin’s earlier insecurities. He was not very worried now about what might come out of his mouth.

“The exact shade is not the issue, Merlin,” Arthur said, his voice a low whisper. “The balls are.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

Sudden stir in the cot caused them to fall silent. Arthur’s eyes flew open and he leaned in to look at the baby. “It’s okay,” he breathed out in relief. “She’s asleep.”

“Great,” Merlin said. “So can we both go to bed now?”

“She won’t let go of my hand.”

“She’s a baby, Arthur,” Merlin said. “You’ve fought off bigger foes.”

Slowly, Arthur tilted his head to a side, giving Merlin a very unimpressed glare. Merlin smiled at him weakly and raised his eyebrows. “What?” he mouthed.

“Escaping a sleeping child without waking her, and throwing you about in bed is not comparable, Merlin. Neither should it ever be compared.” Arthur’s fingers slipped from Merlin’s hair to travel down the scroll of his ear, Arthur’s slow touch sliding over Merlin’s cheek and resting at his lips for a moment. “So we’ll blame your lapse of judgment on the late hour, shall we?”

Merlin’s low hum shattered against the barrier of Arthur’s fingers. His eyes fluttered closed again and he took Arthur’s hand in his own, moving it off his mouth. “What are you saying exactly?” he asked as he brought their joined hands to his chest. “You’re not going to bed tonight?”

“I don’t dare risk it,” Arthur replied. An apology trembled in his voice and shot through Merlin’s heart like fire, making him want to kiss it off Arthur’s mouth at once. But he couldn’t will his legs to move. His whole body felt heavy, as though it would sink through the floor like it was thawing ice on a lake if he attempted to stand upright. Instead he merely squeezed Arthur’s hand and pressed it tighter against his heart.

Arthur returned the squeeze almost absent-mindedly. “She’d always wake up the last four times I tried to leave,” he explained. “I tried fooling her to grab onto her toys or blanket instead but it did not work.”

“Takes after Gwen, she does,” Merlin said. “Knows what she wants. Once she has it she won’t let it go.”

Arthur nodded. “So you finally get it?”

“You’re stuck here, yes.”

“You do get it,” Arthur said with feigned surprise. The night painted solemn shadows under his eyes, and traced the angles of Arthur’s face with a soft glow. He looked tired and unearthly in that moment, Merlin thought. Ghostly. He reached back to curl his arm around Arthur’s naked calf.

“Yes, Merlin, precisely. I’m stuck,” Arthur continued in a haughty, morose, and entirely Arthur-y voice that had Merlin smiling to himself.

“I see,” Merlin said brightly and made to push himself off the floor. “Goodnight, Arthur.”

Arthur’s hand was on his shoulder in an instant, holding him in place. “Where do you think you’re going?” He might have sounded commanding but there was a faint flicker of hurt in his eyes that Merlin picked up on without a moment’s delay.

“To bed?” he replied hesitantly.

Arthur twisted his mouth, staring at Merlin wordlessly.

“No point in both of us staking out at Delyth’s bedside all night,” Merlin argued despite himself. Even half-asleep he couldn’t bring himself to back out and stop bickering.

“Merlin,” Arthur started in a voice he would always use when trying to reason with Merlin and at the same time remind him that Merlin’s being an insufferable idiot. “Let me ask you a question. If I were to race you to the door now what do you think your chances of getting out of here first would be?”

Merlin twisted around where he was sitting to face Arthur, with his legs folded underneath him. “I’m fast.”

A corner of Arthur’s lips moved upwards at the sight of Merlin’s resigned glower. “Chances are that the second my hand leaves Delyth’s she’s going to wake up and start screaming,” he continued. “And I can guarantee you that even half asleep I can beat you, Merlin, because there is no way you’re leaving this room tonight. The question is only if you’ll stay here alone or whether I’ll very generously keep you company. The choice is yours.”

“Fine.” With a huff of annoyance Merlin rested his chin and folded arms on Arthur’s thigh and rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t really going to leave, you know,” Merlin mumbled, still remembering Arthur’s expression when he pretended to go. “But you’re going to regret your decision when neither of us can move in the morning, just you wait.”

Arthur laughed softly. His fingers found their way back to Merlin’s hair. “Shut up and sleep, Merlin,” he whispered.

So they all did; Merlin resting his head on Arthur’s lap, and Delyth clinging to Arthur’s hand throughout the night. Miles away down south in another country Lance had fallen asleep on a hotel room sofa watching a programme in French he did not fully understand. Gwen, wedged in between her husband and the backrest, was clutching her phone to her chest. The display went dark few seconds after her eyes had closed, covering up an unsent text message.

The message, were it ever sent, would have been the sixth Gwen had written Merlin and Arthur that day alone. It would have said just a simple, “thank you, boys.”


End file.
